Broiler Pan in My Cheap Stove

I own a rather low end gas stove and it has a smallish broiler in the bottom. I've been cooking with the stove/oven for many years now and never used the broiler until this weekend. The broiler and pan were never used clean. Well not anymore.

If I want to continue using the broiler pan apparatus should I season it like I would a black iron skillet?

I can see trying to keep it clean down to it's original paint is gonna be a real pain. I've coated it twice with oven cleaner and still can't get some of the cooked on gunk off. It seems like it's dying to be seasoned and used that way instead.

Here's what the thing looks like when it was new:

http://www.jennair.com/assets/product/4 ... 64x264.png

A broiler pan doesn't need to be seasoned. Doing so won't improve anything. If you can't clean it as much as you'd like, just put tin foil on it.

The broiler pan you linked to is made of porcelain-enameled steel (this is super common, especially for broiler pan sets that come with ranges), so it physically cannot be seasoned.

Like Darren said, you can either scrub until your arm falls off, or cover it with aluminum foil. If the dirty pan really bugs you, you can always buy a new one for around 20 bucks and vow to keep the new one clean on an ongoing basis to prevent it from getting just as funky-looking as your old one

IIRC its seems to be the same material my outdoor gas grill grates are made of. I keep that clean by just heating it and rubbing it with a wire brush before use.

Yes, porcelain-enameled steel is a common material for charcoal grill grates. You don't really even need to use this pan in the broiler. You can just as easily use a basic sheet pan. The two issues you need to worry about are (1) the pan warping if it is thin metal and (2) fat spitting up and burning. The grill pan has slots that allow fat to drip down. This helps prevent flare-ups. But you can easily avoid these if you improvise a drip pan, buy a new one, or don't put thing in the broiler long enough for flare ups to happen.

If your oven has self-cleaning, you could leave the pan in the oven when you run the cleaning cycle. I noticed the pan you linked to is a Jennair. I also have a Jennair range, and the pan as well as the stove-top are a pain in the butt to keep clean. Whatever materials they used, seem to almost bond with grease. I figure that the boiler is going to burn off anything nasty, and any dinner guests are unlikely to see the pan, so I just get it as clean as I reasonably can, and leave it at that. I do line the lower pan with foil.

I wish I had a Jenn Air stove. I just found that JPG as a reference.